


she who pays the piper

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: an age of men [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ancient History, F/M, Family, Fourth Age, Gondor, In-Laws, Language Barrier, Languages and Linguistics, Music, Politics, Rohan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 15:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20566511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Queen Lothíriel of Rohan tries her hand at translation, diplomacy, and soft power.





	she who pays the piper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brynnmclean (ilfirin_estel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilfirin_estel/gifts).

If there is one thing Lothíriel has always loved – and one thing she finds it easy to adjust to, in Meduseld – it is music. She struggles with Rohirric grammar and vocabulary, but she loves their songs, and the words come more easily to her as part of the solemn rolling songs than they did in everyday speech. Partly because the songs are meant to be memorable, she supposes, and partly because she learned to sing in Quenya long before she ever learned a word of it in her lessons, mimicking sounds she could not have formed into words by herself.

She trades song for song with her ladies-in-waiting, and over the course of time, is pleased to hear familiar tunes and snatches of Sindarin hummed and sung around the Golden Hall. Not just in the performances of paid musicians, but in daily life, as lullabies, as working-songs, casually and without thought. Lothíriel keeps her satisfaction to herself, and feels more at home.

Éomer persists, for some unknown reason, in believing he cannot sing - which is wrong, she’s heard him when he thinks she isn’t listening. But she will wear him down. He has already commented favourably on her singing - and her vastly improved Rohirric, which she is sure is not a coincidence.

“Was there much music here before?” she asks one night, blowing out the lamp and curling against Éomer’s broad chest.

“Plenty,” Éomer yawns. “But not as much as there is now. And there were fewer songs from other lands. My grandmother’s are not much sung.”

Lothíriel’s distant, much-older, long-gone cousin – _Morwen Steelsheen_, they call her here – must have brought many songs of the valleys of Lossarnach, Lothíriel thinks. Which means, given the tenacious memory of the average Rohirrim, that someone must remember them, and it is possible someone even wrote them down. It’s worth investigating.

“Hmm,” she sighs. “What about your sister? Éowyn? Does she sing?”

Lothíriel has great difficulty imagining the fearsome White Lady - a creature of diamond and gold whose only greater joy than a sword in her hand appears to be Lothíriel’s cousin Faramir - singing for pleasure. Lady Éowyn is kind, but not approachable – at least, not to Lothíriel, not yet.

Éomer goes stiff. Lothíriel half-sits up, surprised, and tries to see his face. Of course, it’s too dark; she can’t pick out his expression.

“She sang when we were younger,” Éomer says, “as any child does – but later she did not want to draw attention to herself.”

There’s a story there, Lothíriel thinks, as she subsides down onto the bed. Is it too much to attribute it to Gríma Wormtongue, who seems to have got his greasy fingers all over Meduseld?

She doesn’t pry.

“Of course, it would be awkward these days,” Lothíriel muses. “Half the most popular songs in Gondor are about her now. Imagine singing a heroic ballad about yourself.”

Éomer’s surprised snort of laughter successfully changes the topic.

There are songs in Rohan about Éowyn Éomund’s daughter, who slew the Dwimmerlaik before Mundburg and took a lord of Gondor to husband. There are songs in Gondor about the Lady Éowyn Wraithslayer, bride of Lord Faramir, who delivered Middle-Earth from the Witch-King of Angmar. They are almost all in either Sindarin or Rohirric, and, apparently, never the twain shall meet. Some of them are very romantic, depending on whether the lyricist chose to tell a love story about Lothíriel’s cousin and his wife, or whether they focused on Éowyn and Faramir’s respective deeds of valour. They are very impressive deeds of valour.

And Lothíriel is perfectly well aware that a queen ought not to complain, and therefore does not complain, but her translation practice pieces are _incredibly boring_.

Lothíriel’s brothers write to her a lot; Éomer jokes that as a family, their correspondence between Ithilien, Dol Amroth, Minas Tirith and Meduseld is keeping the paper-mills in business. The letters tend to come with packages, sweets she likes or cloth for a dress that will suit her, and are mostly about family news, or current events in Gondor. And politics – but that comes between the lines of careful sentences, rather than out in the open. The Prince of Dol Amroth raised all of his children cautious.

And his nephew, too. Lothíriel notes that even though Faramir remains Steward of Gondor, he is currently principally resident in Ithilien, which either means he isn’t doing his job, he is so desperately in love with his wife that he can’t bear to be parted from her even for a week, or that someone somewhere has decided it is politically more suitable if beloved Faramir and heroic Éowyn clear out of the way of King Elessar for a while. Some of these explanations are more likely than others. Erchirion’s latest letter narrows the options down further.

It was, of course, only good manners for Faramir to spend so much time in Rohan before his wedding, leaving King Elessar to consolidate his rule, but this is something else. Lothíriel hopes King Elessar, a man raised to kingship by the sword, enjoys doing all his own governing.

She writes to Elphir, who is in Dol Amroth, with Father, and secures a surprisingly unvarnished summary of Father’s concerns about Faramir’s political position. Father loved both Boromir and Faramir dearly, but he has always been particularly close to Faramir - always kept plans and dreams and hopes for him, as if the Steward’s younger son were one of his own children. And now Father suspects that someone is trying to push Faramir out of sight where he can be forgotten about, in his orc-infested idyll of Ithilien, with his legendary wife. Father doesn’t think it’s the king’s idea – still less the queen’s. But it is certainly someone’s idea, and there are a lot of interests of Faramir’s that could be damaged in his enforced absence, which would of course have repercussions for his cousins, and Lady Éowyn doesn’t seem like the type to sit still if her husband is disrespected, and Éomer likes his brother-in-law and loves his sister dearly, so…

Lothíriel had better see to it that absolutely nobody has any chance of forgetting Faramir, Éowyn, and their many fine qualities, including their loyalty, their worth as leaders, their deeds of valour, and their coincidental but rather beautiful echo of the bond between Gondor and Rohan. Amrothos is apparently already hinting and nudging and deflecting in the Court of the White Tree, but Lothíriel is more than ready to do her part.

Translating songs is harder than singing them, but it’s interesting. Lothíriel’s ladies grow interested themselves and join in, which does wonders for resolving several small but vexing interpersonal hiccups. And Meduseld’s skalds are always happy to have new music to sing, especially if Lothíriel is generous in payment for her requests, and especially when the songs are about Éowyn, still very much beloved in the home of her childhood.

And skalds _travel_.

“You are up to something,” Éomer says resignedly, hauling his tunic over his head and emerging with his hair in a tangle. He is recently returned from the Hornburg, sweaty and tired, but (evidently) not tired enough to be unobservant. “Your songs are all over the Mark – and Gondor, too, I don’t doubt. And I know they did not get there by accident.”

“Songs were made to be sung,” Lothíriel says, innocently. “I asked the maids to draw you a bath, and we’ll dine in our rooms tonight. Queen Arwen is very musical, isn’t she?”

“You would know better than I,” Éomer says, giving her an exceptionally fishy look.

“Hmm,” Lothíriel says. She’s heard Queen Arwen sing – it’s like listening to a night full of stars – but she’s never heard her sing anything new, preferring tales of far-off days. Still, any woman might be grateful for a break from endless fawning variations on Beren and Lúthien. Lothíriel was getting sick of them herself.

She writes a letter while Éomer’s bathing, and includes some sheet music with it.

In her experience, it pays to be thorough.


End file.
